


Second Chances

by OrtegaTrash (Malicei)



Series: Fallen Hero Fics [10]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, FTM, Fluff, Fluffy Angst, Gen, Mistaken Death, Reunions, Self-Blame, Transgender, Transman, before selfcorrecting, temporary use of deadnames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 15:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19871782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malicei/pseuds/OrtegaTrash
Summary: Even villains have loved one. Mikael once had a family, before the farm took him away and stole even his memories of them from him.





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Name: Mikael Hansson | Puppet: Eden | Villain name: Thorne  
> Cautious / anonymous / tech-savvy / tactician / anarchist  
> Outsider scar, truth
> 
> So I headcanon my sidestep Mikael as having been kidnapped from his loving family while on holiday in America as a child. Have a family reunion.

There is a little red house down at the end of the lane.

There is a little red house down at the end of the lane in a quiet little country town in Sweden, on the edge of a great lake.

There is a little red house with faded white timber framing and a roof that leaks when there’s a particularly bad storm to the point that the iron bucket placed underneath the hole has rusted into place permanently.

The air is disconcertingly fresh,  
And you suppose the pastries are particularly tempting.

Maybe that’s why you force yourself up the steps, feeling like you’ve lost control of yourself. Lost control of your own body. Your own life.

Maybe that’s why you press the doorbell, knowing that its chimes are just ever so slightly out of tune and shivering despite yourself at the sense of déjà vu.

For the pastries, of course. Seems like they’re having a coffee break inside, of course there’s always time for _fika._ Time which you’ve just interrupted from the way the chatter inside stops at the sound of the doorbell.

_“Were you expecting a visitor-?”_

_“I think it might be the package I ordered, I’ll be right back.”_

Your throat goes dry.

The middle-aged woman who comes to the door looks tired. Tired, but kind, the crows feet at the edges of her eyes softening into polite confusion as she takes you in. _“Oh, hello, may I help you?" Is this young man lost?_

 _"I…”_ You lose all the words you had planned, dying unconceived in your throat. Because you, you weren’t sure you could trust your memory, could scarcely hope to believe these strange dreamlike visions could have been anything _real._

That _they_ were real. That you, too, were once like them, human and real and _happy-_

 _“-Are you quite alright? Do you need help?”_ She looks slightly alarmed at the way the tears are streaming down your face and you can’t help but to break into disbelieving laughter.

You swallow it down as best you can, try to compose yourself. Your voice is rusty and unsure, it’s been so long since you’ve spoken anything other than English - but somehow the words come to you like in a dream. Like they were something you’d always known, you’d just forgotten that you knew. _“Kristina, you are Kristina Hansson, yes?”_

_“That is me. What exactly is this about?”_

She doesn't…

She doesn’t even _recognise_ you. You’d somewhat expected this, it feels like a completely different lifetime ago that you once knew her and she would not be expecting to see a man’s face in the place of a little girl’s.

_“Did you…did you happen to have a daughter named Mia, once?”_

The woman’s face shutters as she draws inward. _“Yes,”_ she says, simply. _“Once. But it’s been more than a decade since they took my little girl. If you have nothing new to bring me on her case, I would rather not speak of it.”_

You wince, you hadn’t meant to bring up old wounds like this. How strange to be the one putting her in this position. That just leaves you with the issue…how do you even bring up something like this delicately?

You take a deep breath in. _“When I couldn’t sleep, I used to beg you to stay by my side and sing me lullabies. I was so afraid of storms as a child, but you would tell me not to be afraid because it was just Thor striking his hammer.”_

Her brow creases, eyes wide with the implications and yet not daring to believe. _“What…please, if you are planning on using my daughter’s memory to con money out of me, you should know better-!”_

You don’t let her finish. _“-And that got me into reading those marvel comics about Thor. I was fascinated, I remember. I told you I wanted to be a superhero too, raining down lightning from the sky.”_

You’d eventually settled on letting Ortega do the frying people and you suppose you were a hero for a few years too - so in a way, you really had managed to achieve your childhood dream.

She’s trembling. _“M-Mia? But- How?”_ She can’t help but let the tentative hope and disbelief bleed through, wanting so badly to believe and being tired of being disappointed one too many times.

The shaky smile that makes its way onto your face threatens to ruin you. _“I go by Mikael nowadays,”_ you note, your attempt at a deadpan tone ruined by the lingering vulnerability that comes from being afraid. Afraid of hoping. Afraid of rejection.

The arms that fling themselves around you are an answer in themselves. _“Mikael,”_ she whispers, like she’s trying it out to see how it feels on her tongue. _“Mikael, Mikael, Mikael!”_

It.

It’s all just too much at once and you finally allow yourself to break down for the first time in a long, long time in your mother’s arms.

 _“Mamma,”_ you whisper. _“I’m finally home.”_

—

Pappa sits at the coffee table, hoarding all the biscuits. “Oh! Ah. Do we have a visitor?” he mumbles with his mouth full, looking equally embarrassed and guilty before holding out the packet. _“Per Hansson, I don’t believe we’ve met. Would you like a biscuit, Mr…?”_ He trails off, not quite able to look you in the eye.

You take a biscuit with a fond smile. _“Hansson. Mikael Hansson, and I believe you would be mistaken. We do, in fact, know each other.”_

He blinks before going bright red. _“Oh? Ah, my memory must be going, I’m terribly sorry…”_

Your dear old man. You plonk yourself down on the seat beside him and steal his tea as he’s reaching for it with a wry, cheeky grin (you’d always been able to count on him backing you up on your shared hatred of coffee.) _“You would have known me better as ‘Mia’, back then.”_

The shock of your rudeness at have stolen his tea from out under his nose is still taking a moment for him to process, his mouth open in a perfect circle as he blubbers at you. Begins to say something and then snaps his mouth shut again.

 _“I-”_ he begins. _“What? …How? …What even?”_

You smother the tiniest of giggles in ~~his~~ _your_ teacup, regretting your decision as you cough and choke on how hot it is.

To his credit, he just shakes his head at you, eyes glassy with emotions as he reaches in to embrace you. _“Oh, my little gir-, er. Little one. All grown up. Alive and well.”_ He leans back to look at you. _“Well. Alive, at least. I wouldn’t want to presume about what happened to you…but I never thought…”_

He’s starting to lose grip of his emotions with the way he’s just clutching at your clothes, as if he doesn’t even think you could be real. It’s…surreal.

There are so many things you want to say, so many things you want to ask that they all tumble over themselves on their way to climb out of your mouth. That’s why you say nothing but: _“Wait, how do you know it’s really me without confirming it? I could be a paid actor, sent to con two grieving parents out of their money. Mamma thought so.”_

Why do you sabotage yourself like this?

But Pappa is laughing and ruffling your hair like he used to and telling you: _“Silly child, as if I couldn’t see the bird’s nest of hair I gave you once I knew to look! As if I couldn’t see the colour of your mother’s eyes when I look into yours or the way you both make the strangest faces like a bewildered cat when you’re confused, like you’re doing now!”_

What- You do *not* look like a bewildered cat!

_“Oh, but you were always too much like me. With the terrible taste in facial hair…”_

_“There’s nothing wrong with my moustache!”_ You’re sure even the tips of your ears are bright red by now. You’d…you’d forgotten just how *embarrassing* he could be.

(It’s not a _bad_ thing.)

—

She bursts into the house with tears in her eyes and clenched fists (and years worth of things she never got to say). _“Is it real? Oh my god, is my baby sister finally home after all these years?”_

You stare at her, mouth full of biscuits. Then: _“Baby brother now, you know. I didn’t go and spend all my hard earnt money on black market hormones just to grow a moustache for fun…”_ It’s hard work maintaining your (beautiful, dammit) moustache, no matter what they say. A moustache probably full of crumbs at the moment.

Margareta blinks at you, and oh, she still looks like a confused little deer when she does that even if those soft baby cheeks they teased her about have finally sharpened into cheekbones strong enough to cut yourself against. And then she’s pulling you in for a back-breaking hug (and god isn’t it so strange to find yourself taller than your big sister now?) and getting snot all over your jacket as she sobs.

It’s fine, a dry-cleaning bill is nothing compared to seeing your sister again.

She has to reach up to cup your face between her hands, which gets an instant huff from you. You hadn't….you had completely forgotten she used to do that and squeeze your cheeks and tease you about how adorable you were…

But the look on her face is sorrowful. Maybe it’s something in the lines of your face, the permanent shadows under your eyes but she looks like she’s the barest slip away from breaking down in front of you.

 _“Margit,”_ you begin. _“What’s the matter?”_

She covers her face. _“I’m so sorry, you should hate me.”_

 _“Hate you?”_ That takes you aback. _“Whatever for? Are you not happy to see me?”_

 _“Of course I am!”_ Her reply is so strong and full of conviction at your words you can’t do anything but blink. Blink at the way she uncovers her face in the moment and you see just how distraughtly she looks at you.

_“Then…what?”_

Her eyes train themselves furiously on the floor. _“…I failed you. Oh, god, I’m so sorry, I failed you so badly, I didn’t mean to take my eyes off you in that moment…”_ She’s beginning to hyperventilate.

Pappa is by her side looking concerned and mamma’s footsteps are hurrying your way at the commotion.

 _“Hey, steady now. Don’t tell me you blame yourself for what happened?”_ You were just a kid, a kid more interested in lingering near the toy store than listening to his annoying older sister prattle on with her friends. You were tired and grumpy and too annoyed to listen when she told you to keep up.

You didn’t mean to linger behind…

 _“It was!”_ Margareta says it with such miserable sincerity that you understand in this very moment that she’s indeed been blaming herself for your kidnapping all these years. _“I was responsible for you and everything that happened to you and I…I really fucked up. I thought I got you murdered, you have to understand. I thought I had sent you to a painful, horrific death and the last thing I had said to you was how much I hated you for being so annoying.”_

You take a deep breath. _“I won’t lie. My life has…not exactly been easy, since. But…”_ She’s looking at you with the most wretched resignation in her eyes, accepting of whatever verdict you pass upon her. _“But it’s not your fault. You were just a kid then, too. None of us could have known what would happen…”_

 _“He’s right,”_ Pappa murmurs. _“I don’t think anyone could have prepared for the heartbreak that would occur.”_

You just about manage to hide your wince at his phrasing.

 _“Things might not ever be the same,”_ -Mamma’s voice floats over to the three of you huddled in an impromptu family hug- _“But we have a second chance we never thought we’d get. I’m not going to waste the chance to try and build something new together.”_

A second chance.

Maybe…

Maybe you really have been lingering too much in the past.

Maybe you really should give second chances a go.

_“What are you smiling about, Mikke?”_

You wipe the tears from your face with a wry expression. _“…There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”_  
—

You can’t see Ricardo’s face over the phone but you can certainly imagine his expression.

“Wait, did I hear that right? You want to bring me to meet your family?”

“Yes?”

“It’s been a long time coming.” He sounds so immeasurably smug. “But since when did you…I didn’t even know you had a family anymore?”

You blink. “Did you think I popped out of a tank fully formed?”

“…Maybe?” Okay, that’s fair. That’s what they told you as well and you’re not really certain if it’s completely a lie, either. It’s possible the other Re-Genes were grown in artificial wombs like they said.

“Well, they’re alive and well. And they want to meet whoever’s 'got me blushing so hard,’ in their words.” You are NOT blushing at the memory. Absolutely not.

“You know of course I’d be honoured to. To be honest, I just figured you didn’t have a good relationship with them when you told me you didn’t have a family all those years ago…”

You smile despite your sigh. “Yeah…I do have a bad habit of saying things that aren’t technically lies but might be a bit misleading, don’t I?”

“Mikael…” His voice is reproaching. Reproaching, but fond. “We have time to work on that. Unraveling all the secrets between us. This is our second chance, remember?”

You’re certain he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Yes. I’d like that.” Like to finally be yourself and surrounded by the people you love. “…Our own second chance.”


End file.
